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Three new qualifying medical marijuana conditions were approved Wednesday, bringing the list to 25.

The Ohio State Medical Board approved Huntington's disease, terminal illness and spasticity to the list. They join a list that includes HIV/AIDS, cancer and chronic pain.

Huntington's disease is a rare brain disease that is inherited. It causes the breakdown of nerve cells in the brain. Huntington's disease has a broad impact on a person's functional abilities and usually results in movement, thinking (cognitive) and psychiatric disorders. With spasticity or severe muscle spasms, a person's muscles stiffen or tighten and can't be stretched. This can affect movement and speech., or muscle spasms,

The board voted to reject petitions to add autism spectrum disorder, restless leg syndrome, panic disorder with agoraphobia and spasms.

Each year, the board accepts petitions from the public for new conditions. received 30 petitions to add new conditions. Submissions must include evidence cannabis can be used to treat or alleviate the disease or condition and letters of support from physicians. Before Wednesday, the board had added just one condition through the process so far, approving cachexia, or wasting syndrome, in 2020.

2 Marijuana Stocks That Are Slowly Starting To Recover In The Market

Currently in June marijuana stocks are still building more momentum. Which has been much needed after the last 12 weeks of trading. However, even as parts of the sector start to recover there is still time to find good marijuana stocks to buy. In the last 3 months starting from the second week of February cannabis stock drastically dropped in price.

CBD has been the motor powering the cannabis legalization movement. As the part of the plant deemed ‘non-psychoactive’, CBD has gotten a pass that the rest of the plant has not. And this is great! But it’s also led to some rather intense confusion, and longstanding misconceptions.

Are you a delta-8 user? You know, the alternate form of THC that leaves users energetic and clear-headed, without the anxiety produced by delta-9 THC, the standard THC associated with cannabis? Good choice, if you are. Not only are you experiencing THC in a different way, but you’re at the forefront of cannabis technology. We’re here to make sure you’ve got what you need, with a range of Delta-8 THC deals to keep your shelves stocked

Why are we talking about CBD?

CBD – cannabidiol – came into the spotlight around 2018, with the advent of the most recent US Farm Bill. The US Farm Bill is a range of legislation that governs the agricultural world, like what can be grown and how, crop insurance for farmers, farmer training, sustainable farming practices, and ways to get healthy food for low-income families. Basically, anything covered under farming and food, is governed by the Farm Bill, which is put out every five years (approximately).

The 2014 Farm Bill legalized ‘non-viable hemp material’ sales in states with participation in the Hemp Pilot Program. The 2018 Us Farm Bill removed hemp from the Controlled Substances list, making the production and sale of products possible on a large scale. Since cannabis is federally illegal, in order to do this, the definition for ‘hemp’ was set at the following, allowing for a break from the rest of the plant and the ability for a different set of regulatory laws:

“…the plant Cannabis Sativa L. and any part of that plant, including the seeds thereof and all derivatives, extracts, cannabinoids, isomers, acids, salts, and salts of isomers, whether growing or not, with a delta-9 tetrahydrocannabinol concentration of not more than 0.3 percent on a dry weight basis.”

Lawmakers in Connecticut on Tuesday approved a bill that could pave the way for marijuana legalization in the state—but time is running out.

The legislation barely passed out of the state Senate, with a narrow vote of 19-17 in favor sending it to the state House.

But as the CT Mirror put it, it remains “unclear if the House had the votes, time or inclination to attempt final passage before the constitutional deadline of midnight Wednesday, a task that grew more difficult Monday with concerns over attempted favoritism on licensing growers.”

The Mirror reported that the fate of the much anticipated bill hung in the balance deep into Monday.

“Only the vote cast by a retired police officer, Sen. Kevin Witkos, R-Canton, saved the Senate from needing Lt. Gov. Susan Bysiewicz to break a tie. Six Democrats voted with the other 11 Republicans in opposition,” the Mirror reported.

I can guarantee Amazon figured out how many employee applications are failing the marijuana drug test nationally each month.

Why did Amazon come out in favor of legalizing marijuana, now?

With the big press release from Amazon about supporting marijuana legalization in America many in the cannabis industry jumped to the conclusion that Jeff Bezos and his board were getting ready for full on delivery and shipping of marijuana.

Washington state regulators are indicating a willingness to regulate Delta-8 THC products for sale in licensed cannabis dispensaries, although chemical experts say that the issue will require study before rules can be drafted. The Washington Liquor and Cannabis Board announced that it intended to regulate the sale of Delta-8 THC products sold in the state’s licensed marijuana dispensaries.

Last year, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) ruled that Delta-8 THC, a cannabinoid that occurs naturally and can also be processed from CBD, is a controlled substance not protected by the 2018 Farm Bill, which legalized hemp agriculture and products derived from the crop. Since that time, at least a dozen states including New York have banned Delta-8 production and sales.

April’s policy statement from the Washington cannabis board said that the DEA’s interpretation of federal hemp regulations is unenforceable and that the agency would create regulations for Delta-8 sold in licensed cannabis dispensaries. At a meeting of chemists from the University of Washington, Washington State University and private labs organized by the board last week, researchers said that study into Delta-8 has been limited so far.

“Frankly, the field hasn’t done too much with Delta-8, because it does almost the same thing as Delta-9,” said Nephi Stella, a professor of pharmacology and psychiatry at the University of Washington and co-director of the school’s Center for Cannabis Research.

The cannabis board’s policy statement holds that it is not legal to sell Delta-8 produced from CBD or other cannabinoids in licensed dispensaries. But some groups, including the Washington Cannabusiness Association, believe that the Liquor and Cannabis Board could regulate the extraction of naturally occurring Delta-8 THC.

Throughout the country, cannabis regulations are changing every day. Some areas are experiencing more dramatic legislative upgrades than others, but every little step forward still counts. At the moment, there are 5 states that come to mind because, one, they are making big moves, or two, they are conservative states that most people were expecting would hold on to prohibition for much longer.

This week we’re focusing on the East Coast and Deep South, with updates from Connecticut, Tennessee, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama

Connecticut

Connecticut Governor Ned Lamont (D), along with other state lawmakers, just reached a compromise on an adult-use cannabis bill that will likely be implemented in late spring of 2022. The bill would finally lay the groundwork for retail sales to launch in the state. According to estimates from MJBizDaily, the Connecticut recreational market could exceed $250 million in sales in just the first year, and reach a total of roughly $725 million by the fourth year.

Senate Bill 1118 has only just been drafted, however, and it still needs to a pass votes in both the House of Representatives and Senate. Opponents may still try to interfere, which could result in Gov. Lamont calling a special session on the issue this summer. It’s hard to say whether that will also delay the launch of recreational sales or not.

One of the major points in this agreement is offering priority licensing status to social equity applicants. According to the bill text, to qualify as a social equity applicant, the individual will need to have spent the last five out of ten years living in a “disproportionately impacted area, as defined by a jobless rate above 10% or a historically high drug conviction rate. Municipalities would be limited to one marijuana retailer and one micro-cultivator per 25,000 residents until July 1, 2024.”

Tennessee

Tennessee is a relatively conservative state, but the influx of new residents from blue states along the east and west coasts might be having an impact already. Last month, Republican Governor Bill Lee passed a limited medical cannabis bill that would lead to many changes in the way businesses operate within the state.

What we can gather from this report, and other consumer reports like this one, is that Americans are past ready for cannabis legalization, especially after the stress of 2020.

The cannabis industry’s proof was in 2020’s revenue, but a new report from consumer data firm Brightfield shows consumer behavior to match exactly what the cannabis industry already knew: people consumed more cannabis during the pandemic than they were before.

Gen Z makes up a large part of new consumers

A clear factor is stress and anxiety, and the Brightfield report confirms that. New recreational cannabis consumers made up 6% of all consumers in 2020, with 22% being Gen Z. If you thought Generation Z wasn’t old enough to consume cannabis, so did we (kidding), but many of them are now 21 which means legal access to cannabis if they live somewhere where it’s legal.

Photo by Eliott Reyna via Unsplash

Consumers seeking relaxation, sleep, and emotional relief from cannabis

New recreational customers saw the heaviest consumption, specifically in Q4 2020, with 22% of new consumers reporting they utilized cannabis multiple times a day. This declined a little bit in Q1 2021, but nonetheless, new cannabis consumers are entering the market at a faster rate than pre-pandemic. The top three desired cannabis product effects are relaxation, sleep, and emotional relief. Over half, 54%, of new recreational consumers reported utilizing cannabis for anxiety, while a whopping 74% of consumers sought cannabis for relaxation.

With an unexpectedly close 19-17 vote, the Senate passed legislation early Tuesday that would legalize recreational marijuana in Connecticut, sending the bill to a closely divided House of Representatives on the penultimate day of the legislature’s 2021 session.

It was unclear if the House had the votes, time or inclination to attempt final passage before the constitutional deadline of midnight Wednesday, a task that grew more difficult Monday with concerns over attempted favoritism on licensing growers.

“We’ll make the time,” said House Majority Leader Jason Rojas, D-East Hartford, who led the working group that produced the bill and watched the denouement of an oddly tense and protracted vote in the Senate.

Only the vote cast by a retired police officer, Sen. Kevin Witkos, R-Canton, saved the Senate from needing Lt. Gov. Susan Bysiewicz to break a tie. Six Democrats voted with the other 11 Republicans in opposition.

WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN CBD & THC? JOIN US TO FIND OUT!

Description: There are a lot of discussions about cannabis effects recently! Some are saying it should be legal because of all the benefits of CBD! Others are saying that THC comes with a lot of risks? What do you think? Are you certain that you have all the right information?

A simple truth is that marijuana marked a big part of our youth. Okay, truth to be told, we were rebellious teenagers, so smoking pot was an essential part of growing up. But, plenty of our friends who didn’t take any risks whatsoever also used to smoke it at parties, etc.  Although the use of cannabis isn’t a new thing, at that time, it was somewhat of forbidden fruit. Hence, smoking or making cookies with it was super exciting. What are your experiences with pot? 

As you probably know, the attitudes towards cannabis were significantly changing throughout history. They also varied from culture to culture. For example, in Asian and Native American cultures, it was pretty used for both recreational and medicinal purposes. In the incident, however, it was quickly labeled as harmful. The main reason for that is its psychoactive ingredient, tetrahydrocannabinol or THC.

Recently, however, we see the winds shifting. First, it became clear that CBD which is extracted from hemp has plenty of positive effects on our health. Hence more and more states in the U.S. and countries worldwide started to legalize it. Further research showed there are plenty of cannabis effects and benefits.  So now we are moving towards the legalization of marijuana as well.

At the same time, an increasing number of people are seeking supplements that can help improve their health, such as protein powder cookies or alleviate the symptoms of existing health problems. Hence, more and more folks are becoming curious about the differences between CBD vs.THC and cannabis product’s effects.

An ingredient strongly implicated in the EVALI (e-cigarette or vaping use-associated lung injury) outbreak that spread across the U.S. in 2019 could soon be banned in the state of Michigan.

Last week, Michigan’s House approved three bills that would ban the sale of tobacco and cannabis vaping products containing vitamin E acetate, reports MLive.com.

The United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has “strongly linked” the ingredient to the EVALI outbreak that resulted in 68 deaths and nearly 3,000 hospitalizations, across all 50 states.

The package of bills was introduced by Rep. Abdullah Hammoud, D-Dearborn, and Rep. Joe Bellino, R-Monroe, and passed with bipartisan support. The bills will now move on to the Senate for further review.

Between April 2019 and February 2020, nearly 3,500 vaping products containing vitamin E acetate were sold in Michigan and an additional 8,000 cartridges containing the ingredient were removed from inventory.

Cities and towns across New York are considering whether to allow retail cannabis dispensaries and consumption lounges legalized under state law to operate within their jurisdictions, with some officials urging them to act as a deadline approaches.

In March, the New York state legislature and Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo approved legislation to legalize marijuana for adults and establish a regulated and taxed economy for the commercial production and sale of cannabis. Under that legislation, municipal governments have the right to opt out of the establishment of licensed cannabis dispensaries and consumption lounges within their borders. Towns and cities that decide not to allow such businesses must hold a referendum on the ban if at least 20 percent of registered voters sign petitions calling for such a vote.

During a recent webinar, Sarah Brancatell, the legislative director for the New York State Association of Towns, warned municipal leaders that do not want cannabis lounges and retailers in their communities that they have only until the end of the year to approve a local ordinance. Cities and towns that do not opt out before that time will not be able to in the future.

“The local law has to be adopted on or before Dec. 31, 2021. That’s coming up really quickly,” said Brancarella. “It’s like a one or done shot. If you adopt it on Jan. 1, it has no effect.”

New York Local Officials Taking Action

Municipal leaders across the state have begun to take notice, and movements to enact bans on cannabis businesses are already underway. In North Salem, a suburb of New York City in Westchester County, the Town Board has set a hearing to be held June 22 via Zoom on a proposed opt-out ordinance. At a meeting of the board on May 25, Supervisor Warren Lucas said that if the town opts out of the businesses, the decision can be reversed at a later date.

Maine’s adult-use cannabis retailers sold over $5 million worth of marijuana products in May, a new record for the state’s nascent legal market. 

The state’s 34 licensed adult-use retailers reported 71,843 sales transactions totaling nearly $5.4 million last month, earning the state roughly $536,000 in tax revenue. 

Recreational cannabis sales figures in Maine have climbed steadily since the market launched in October, with retailers bringing in about $1.1 million in the first month.

May’s $5.4 million record broke the previous record, set in April, by over $1 million. 

So far, the legal adult-use market has reported about $22.7 million in sales, earning the state more than $2.2 million in sales tax revenue, according to data from the Maine Office of Marijuana Policy.

Charlotte’s Web Holdings is teaming up with the University of Colorado-Boulder on investigating supporting improved sleep with two cannabinoids.

Many people would be familiar with the cannabinoid CBD (cannabidiol) these days, but it’s just one of many cannabinoids in cannabis. Another is CBN – cannabinol, which is found only in trace amounts in the plant.

Charlotte’s Web says while there is some anecdotal evidence for CBN supporting better sleep, there is little substantiated clinical or preclinical evidence to back these claims.

Charlotte’s Web’s CW Labs division is collaborating with University of Colorado-Boulder’s REACH (Research and Education Addressing Cannabis and Health) Center to investigate the company’s full spectrum hemp formulations with CBN (cannabinol) and CBD (cannabidiol) to examine the impact on anxiety and sleep quality. These formulations contain less than 0.3% THC.

University of Colorado-Boulder’s Monika Fleshner, PhD, Professor of Integrative Physiology, and a member of the Center for Neuroscience at the University is lead for the project, which will be conducted her Stress Physiology Laboratory.

Cannabis brings big money to those U.S. states willing to legalize. This is the message marijuana advocates have been preaching for years, and they take every opportunity to praise it as a selling point.

Some of the latest numbers prove that the sale of cannabis products is poised to become one of the largest, tax-generating inebriation markets in the U.S.

The state House on Monday approved a set of revisions to Pennsylvania’s medical marijuana law, seeking to make permanent some of the changes put in place temporarily because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Representatives voted 164 to 38 for the bill, which would permit dispensing a three-month supply at a time, up from one month’s supply. Patients will be able to continue to pick up their medicine outside a dispensary, rather than coming inside the building.

State Health Department communications director Barry Ciccocioppo said the agency was concerned about provisions of the bill he said threaten product quality and patient safety.

” We look forward to working with the legislature to resolve these concerns for the best interest of Pennsylvanians,” Ciccocioppo said.

The legislation would also let caregivers provide help to more than five patients at once and would ease the process by which contaminants must be removed before the final testing. Grower-processors would be permitted to use pesticides under standards the Agriculture Department would develop.

The economic picture is getting high in Southwest Michigan, thanks in great part to the marijuana industry.

New businesses in empty factories. Busy storefronts. Tens of thousands of dollars in tax revenues. The marijuana business is big in Southwest Michigan.

The South Bend Tribune reports that a number of factories and storefronts that had been forced to close their doors when redevelopment efforts came up short have found new life since the state legalized marijuana.

Marijuana Advocacy groups Are Pushing Congress To Pass A Federal Cannabis Bill This Month

A collection of influential advocacy groups are pushing for federal cannabis reform. Both the ACLU and NAACP are pressing the heads of a congress to conduct a vote. This vote would be in regards to a House bill to legalize cannabis on a federal level. The vote and potential passing of the bill are trying to be accomplished by the end of the month.

The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights (LCCHR) shared their thoughts on cannabis reform. This was done in a letter that was sent just last week, to the House leadership. The group stated that it’s important to pass the Marijuana Opportunity, Reinvestment, and Expungement Act. Back in 2020 the MORE Act passed the House and is now being reintroduced.

Ever since last year when the House approved the MORE Act. “the circumstances of this past year have made the War on Drugs even more untenable and amplified the voices of those demanding transformation in our criminal-legal system,” the groups wrote.

“In the face of a growing national dialogue on discriminatory law enforcement practices, including the disproportionate policing of drug use in communities of color, transforming our criminal-legal system and redressing its harms is more relevant and more pressing than ever before,” the letter states. “Marijuana reform represents a modest but necessary first step toward that transformation and toward repairing the harm wrought by the War on Drugs. The MORE Act remains the most effective and equitable way forward.”

Federal Cannabis Reform A Step In The Right Direction

Jerrold Nadler who is the Judiciary Committee Chairman has stepped up as the sponsor of the bill. This bill would remove marijuana from the Controlled Substances Act. As well as erasing the past cannabis crimes for people who have been in trouble with those issues. Next, this bill would also impose a federal tax on cannabis. The tax money that is made from legal cannabis would be used to rebuild communities and fund other programs.